


The Ice Palace, the Queen and her Jester

by eledhwenlin



Category: due South
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-26
Updated: 2006-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-21 18:11:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eledhwenlin/pseuds/eledhwenlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fairytale fic about an Ice Palace, based loosely on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_palace">this Wiki-article</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ice Palace, the Queen and her Jester

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely kalpurna's fault for posting that link. This is also unbetaed.

Once upon a time, there was a Queen living in a northerly land filled with snow and cold. She was fair to look at with hair black like ebony and skin pale as the snow outside her window. Her eyes, however, were cold and her demeanour was just as much. She kept to herself, leading her country alone.

It so happened that one day a nobleman came to serve the Queen at her court. He was tall and handsome with a mind so honest and faithful that even the Queen came to love and desire him. But she was fretfully jealous of the attention this lord was receiving from all the other ladies at court, so she set out to make him hers.

This noble now, named Sir Benton, came from a remote part of the country; so remote that he was used to being alone and caring for himself. In those old days and that particular swathe of land there were few people and fewer still who minded other people’s business. It was easy to keep secrets and of these Sir Benton had plentiful. As he came to notice the court-ladies’ attention, it made him painfully aware of them, for his own desires were focussed on his own sex.

But the Queen had devious ways, many of them violent and scurrile, and so it came about that Sir Benton fell in love with the Queen and swore her his never-ending love and fidelity. They lived happily for a while, but their felicity was short-lived. For soon, the Queen fell sick with an unknown disease and no medicine brought any betterment. So it was decided that the Queen head for a warmer part of her realm, to live under the sun for a while. Sir Benton was left at court, keeping the states affairs in order in her stead. They parted with tears in their eyes, but with promises of a better time.

The Queen went south to seek for warmth and yet the city she left behind felt warmer to his citizens, more alive than it had ever been.

Sir Benton took up a seat in the city’s council, representing the Queen whose faithful advisors now were glad to have a superior who listened to their pleas. The Queen had reigned hard over her land, taking taxes and tolls wherever she could, leaving the lower people poor and without hope.

Growing up in a region where everyone helped everyone else, for no one could survive on their own, Sir Benton felt his duty to the people and set upon righting many a wrong. The people grew to love him and soon there was talk about him becoming the new King, a generous, benevolent person who protect his people.

It was in this time that a merchant from the far south came to this city, bringing with him goods from his homecountry, looking for a purchase. To Sir Benton’s eyes, so used to the never-ending white of the snow and the glistening blue of the ice, the merchant was so colourful as he had never seen anyone before. His clothing was made from many colours and from such a fine fabric that it was no use against the angry cold the north had to offer.

The Merchant, Vecchio of name, was bitterly sore about the cold and so Sir Benton offered him refuge in his own house. With the warmth returning to his body, warmth also returned to the merchant’s mind and, after being alone for many weeks, for he could not seek another woman’s company in the Queen’s absence and the men rejected him as the Queen’s lapdog, Sir Benton fell fast for the quick wit and inherent warmth his new friend had to offer and soon they didn’t part for neither day nor night.

But it wasn’t long until misfortune came upon Sir Benton. Spring neared and with it, so had the Queen decided, she would return to her city, for she had grown healthy and strong again in the good care the country people could offer her. Her body was strong again, but her mind was less so. In the long separation from Sir Benton she had grown almost mad, crazy with jealousy and suspecting misgivings from everyone.

It was this that made her to decide to come back unannounced. The peasants along her way had to suffer harshly, when her carriage came along and no feast was prepared. How, so asked the good people rightly, could they have prepared a feast without knowing the Queen would grace them with their presence? They deserved twenty more whips, the Queen answered and continued her journey.

When she arrived at court, the Queen saw her worst nightmare fulfilled.

Because in the meantime, rumours had arisen about Sir Benton and his doings with the merchant. Vecchio had sold only little in their city, for his garments were pretty, but thin and only the vainest and most immodest people chose to clad themselves this way. But yet Vecchio stayed and he surely must have a reason for doing so? And the rumours were vast, but the most favoured one by all was that they were lovers. The peasants loved it because it gave Sir Benton a love worthy of his person and it abased the Queen. The court-ladies loved it because, if it couldn’t be one of them, so let it be a man and it abased the Queen. The court-lords loved it because it abased the Queen and showed her for the silly creature women were thought to be in this time.

Not only this reached her ears upon entering the city, no, she also had to hear people discussing new taxes, much lower than was her wont, and praising Sir Benton for all his good-doings during her absence.

The Queen arrived at her palace in a fury and who should she meet first but Sir Benton and his good friend Vecchio, the merchant? She ordered them both into her throne room where she sat down elegantly on her throne, looking calm, but thunder was in her voice.

Poor Sir Benton didn’t know why his Queen had become so angry with him and pleaded for her to explain, but she would hear nothing of it. She sent Vecchio away, never to enter her country again for his life would be forfeit, if he did so.

Bewildered Sir Benton watched as his best friend left him behind, as he knew nothing of the rumours, he didn’t have any explanation for the Queen’s harsh treatment of the man. Again he pleaded with her to explain, but it only served to infuriate her further and she sought out a special punishment for Sir Benton. She stripped him of his ranks, of his plain clothing and made him made a colourful and bright dress out of the fabrics the merchant had left behind. A bright red coat was his symbol now and a high colourful hat. Sir Benton was the court jester now.

The Queen made him sing for her, as he had a beautiful voice. She made him dance to make her and the other nobles laugh, as he had never learned the proper ways to dance. It was shameful and disgraceful and yet Sir Benton could not relinquish his love for the Queen, but continued to love her in ways she didn’t deserve.

But this was not all the punishment she had in store for him. At the beginning of Autumn, when the days grew cold and snow fell thickly from the skies, she had him made a special place to live in - an palace made only of ice, cold and freezing and terrifyingly beautiful to look at it. Sir Benton, so used to the coldest climate of the country, was made to live in it and endure the cold. So slowly his body and mind went numb and grew as cold and freezing as his surroundings and the treatment was receiving from his Queen.

This went on for many a months. Then there was a conflict at the Southern border and negotiations with their neighbour country began. For this aim foreign noblemen came to her court to make peace. Among those noblemen there was one who was remarkable for his intense ways. He was named Duke Kowalski, a noblemen of lesser standing, but with a true and good heart.

As there was no place in the throne room for a jester in this time, Sir Benton was relieved of this particular duty, although he still had to wear his clothes that made him stand out in any crowd. It was because of this that Duke Kowalski noticed him in the first place. Lost in the big palace, he had stumbled across a small pathway leading to a small garden. It was this very same garden that the ice palace was erected every year. It gleamed bluely, but among all the blue there was one red speck and that was Sir Benton sitting in his study reading a book about the days of old. Duke Kowalski was mesmerised by this fair man and could not move further or away. Then Sir Benton suddenly looked up and straight at the Duke and in this instant when their eyes met, a fire ignited in their minds. The Duke smiled at Sir Benton and he, who had not know any friendly word for many days, was lost without hope to this man. And he smiled back and the Duke himself was lost, for this smile was so beautiful as he could not put words to it.

From this day on they met in the ice palace every day and every night, as often as the Duke could sneak away from the consultations. But, oh, he disappeared too often and soon the leader of their embassy grew impatient with him and scolded him in public for taking his country’s matter so easily. The Duke was disgraced for none of the Northern country’s noblemen showed him any respect anymore, but it did nothing to diminish his love for Sir Benton.

But eventually, as these things are wont to go, the Queen took sight of the Duke sneaking through the halls of her palace. She followed him and when she saw him enter the ice palace and be united with Sir Benton, she became furious and cried for her guards. Sir Benton and Duke Kowalski were thrown into the dungeon where it was bitterly cold. The Queen intended for them to die as she would not take another affront from Sir Benton again, but miraculously the two men survived, huddled together and keeping each other alive for a night and a day and a night. Then the Queen was sure they’d be dead, but imagine her surprise upon finding them still alive!

She now devised another evil plan. Happily smiling she announced to her court the proposed marriage of Sir Benton to Duke Kowalski. It resulted in an uproar for two men to be wed was an unconceivable thing in those days and an insult to the gods. But the Queen overruled all concerns and organised a wonderful wedding for the two men, mocking them at every turn, expecting the Duke to lose interest in a pray that was so hard to obtain. Instead their love grew stronger and stronger, as Sir Benton and Duke Kowalski withstood the ridicule and hostileness they were met with in the streets.

It was in this situation that another problem for the Queen arose. Shortly after returning from her stay in the country, she had increased the taxes and tolls back to their old levels and even raised some of them even higher, just as she saw fit. The first year the peasants could pay them easily, as it had been a good year. The second year they had had to rely on those savings they had managed to compile during Sir Benton’s short realm. But the third year brought a bad harvest, with a short dry summer and an early cold autumn and they couldn’t pay their taxes. But all pleading and begging only served to increase the taxes even more and the Queen had no pity with her poor people. The peasants complained more and more violently against this horrible treatment and soon the Queen saw herself threatened from within and without her state - an uprising of the peasants and conflicts at the border. She reacted violently against the peasants, which only worsened her situation for now the nobles started to support the peasants’ claims and she found herself alone, without allies, and the target of harsh critic as now all her misgivings were counted.

The disease which she had suffered from that winter three years ago now chose this time to afflict her again. Sick, weak and filled with madness, flinging insults and raving craziness at anyone who dared to approach her, the Queen made a spectacle of herself, but the more she tried to strengthen her hold on power, the more it slipped from her. The city council declared her insane and not fit for ruling. It was looked for a successor, but the Queen insinuated herself into everything and ignored the council’s advice.

Soon she grew too sick to walk and only as she was locked away in her rooms, peace returned to the city. But there was no unity in the people and no one to unite them. In this moment the noblemen of the city stepped up to Sir Benton, asking him to take reign as he had done before. Sir Benton felt flattered, but he had not forgotten the treatment he had received not so long ago from his so-called peers, and so he declined the offer and chose to go to the Duke’s country with him. No one in the northern county ever heard of him again afterwards, but was rumoured that they lived happily together and even took up some orphans as their own children.

And so this story ends.


End file.
